


{The Touch Of Your Hand Says} You'll Catch Me Wherever I Fall

by Fake_Brit



Series: All I need is the air I breathe and a place to rest my head [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe-General Hospital, Brain Injury, F/M, HIV/AIDS, Mentions of the Mob, Non-canon family ties, Prequel, The '90s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fake_Brit/pseuds/Fake_Brit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> “You’re the first person to talk to me without regret over…” Just like that they bump and trip into one another and his throat closes. “You know… him, not being there. You don’t talk to me throwing the fact that you miss him to my face." </i><br/>Or, the au in which ClintBobbi are JnR, in snapshots--kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	{The Touch Of Your Hand Says} You'll Catch Me Wherever I Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Title from When You Say Nothing At All.  
> I started writing this back in May when more ideas in the GH verse popped into my head, and all through finals it grew and grew and it became this huge, sleep consuming thing I finally let out. Hope you guys enjoy ;)  
> Immense thank you for the beta reading to Ludovica :)  
> Let me know whether you enjoyed. More is in the works, because my brain hates stopping

_ To Vì—a.k.a. my personal lucky charm and favourite French person ever. _

_ I even managed to sneak Maria in, whoops. _

_ For the laughs and advice and the freaking out and everything in between,  _ _ je veux te remercier, mon amie. _

_ Bon anniversaire, dear Co-Satan,  _

_ I love you—et voilà, angst to prove that. _

_ Yours, Anna the red-haired Koala. _

_ I Bobbi _

She doesn’t even know why she’s here of all places. Which is to say, she has a vague idea of the reason that has brought her here, her stride urgent and her head filled with words she had no idea how to arrange, but a part of her can only whisper, low and grey and empty, _what good can it be, Bobbi? Even Howard has no idea whether Clint will ever—_

_ _ Her hand closes in a fist by her hip, sharp and angry, her knuckles pressing hard against the bone. _Don’t you dare, Barbara._

As soon as the door comes into view, so achingly familiar that it nearly makes her dizzy, she blows out a breath that burns her throat.

Ever since she’d sat here, grief still hanging around her shoulders like something she could not help but carry around with her, hospitals have made her queasy upon entering. The last time she had been admitted here as a patient, Clint had been by her side, his hand unwavering and warm, his grip tight but gentle. 

His words had played in her head, along with the ticking of the clock, like a cd that was stuck on a certain song, to the point that they sounded nonsensical to her ears, as time had gone by: “Whatever happens, whatever that test says, I’ll be here for you, Bob. You know that right?”

(She can still hear her own voice shaking on Trip’s name sometimes, his crooked smile a shadow pressed against her eyelids like an echo of a memory; it is nearly comforting most of the time, but now it feels like an omen, as though Clint were in for the same fate.)

Her stomach rumbles darkly as if it were agreeing with her latest thought. _You can’t do this._

She enters his room quietly, her feet dragging over the floor. The truth is, Bobbi feels tired to the bone; she’s barely even eighteen and at the same time it feels as though she’s been walking this Earth for centuries, her bones heavy and aching, her heart hollow as her voice tries to find a way out, despite what she might say. 

(Millennia, even, her sighs whisper in the stillness of the room, as her eyes fly to the bed. She doesn’t do it on purpose. In fact, it’s almost as though her eyes had moved on their own, desperately searching for some sort of token of hope.)

Her heart nearly cracks open at the sight of him; she had thought that after Trip and AIDS hospitals wouldn’t have had her stomach bursting with nausea, that she would have felt as though no step she could ever take could falter. She had thought – had felt it to be true in each and every single one of her bones – she would have made through anything life had intention of sending her way.

(Spoiler alert, self: you were wrong. Big time.)

If there’s something that has always come to mind (at least to hers, though) whenever someone brought up Clint Barton, that something is this: he has always feverishly hated being still; he’s always been curious, always trying to get somewhere 

new, to know new people and more about the world in general. As Harold himself said, whenever the phrase could be inserted in his speech without sounding pompous, “He’s the pride of the family. A real prodigy, if I do say so myself,” which is why seeing him now, as he lies still like a stone, nearly has the earth cracking under her feet, all of her certainties vanishing as though a hurricane had uprooted them.

She knows he would hate all of this. The white room, the silence, the rhythmic beeping… she can see him, actually; he’d sit, arms crossed over his chest, one brow arched, and say, “What’s gotten into everybody? Should I break out my clown training again?”

The image spurs a grin out of her, though it barely touches her lips, evaporating like traces of summer rain only moments later.

She starts talking without even meaning to. It is like somewhere inside of her a dam had broken and words just come pouring out—syllables run around in her throat, across her tongue, antsy and breathy and curled in hope. “Your parents threw this huge bash to celebrate your cousin’s wedding and Kate’s birthday,” she says as she sits down beside him, hoping not to miss anything. The Bartons are known to go all in when a celebration is concerned, after all.(Plus, he’d be pissed he missed his little sister’s birthday, she is sure of it.) “It was the usual Barton party, you know? Loud, messy, bursting with your folks and their antics,” the words stop suddenly, leaving her lips parted and her throat dry. _Looks like your best shot is emotions, huh, Bobbi?_

She takes his hand, her fingers gripping his as though the simple gesture may jolt him awake. “We all miss you, Clint,” she whispers, and it sounds as hollow as losing Trip felt. Her heart aches, its beating echoing through her body, wild and sad and angry. “Please, squeeze my hands if you can hear me.” She’s tried hard to keep her fear on the threshold, but apparently she did a poor job. She knows begging him – because that’s what has just come out of her mouth, there is no chalking it up – will probably do nothing against his injuries, but what’s there to lose, she thinks as her hand stays in his, firm and clammy and hopeful.

She’s still trying to compose herself when his fingers grip her hand, so light she thinks she might have imagined the whole thing.

She doesn’t move, her breath loud in her ears. Her nerves are on fire, expectation dancing to the thump thump thump of her heartbeat. “Can you please do that again?”

She closes her eyes. _Don’t hope or think. Don’t._

Clint’s fingers curl around hers, albeit weakly. Her eyes open just in time to catch him as he blinks and mumbles, “What…”

It’s as though she’d been shaken awake. She leaps to her feet and calls over her shoulder, “I’ll go find Howard and your dad and I’ll be right back, Okay?”

Hope beats into her veins. _He’s awake_ , it sings, merry and loud and intoxicating. _Clint’s awake._

It makes her dizzy, but her smile seems etched into her skin and it feels so damn good.

**_ II Clint _ **

He has no idea how exactly he ended up here. He just knew he had to get out of the house, his limbs screaming at him, _get away from here as fast as you can._

The bridge is quiet—thank whatever deity lies up there. (He doesn’t know whether he’s religious or not, whether he wants to be or not, he only knows the gratefulness pulsing through him at the idea of just standing here, no invisible ghost lurking in his skin, according to the eyes of whoever looks at him)

There is a girl looking down at the water, though; she seems lost, somehow. As if, he whispers to himself, unable to keep his head away from watching and committing and wondering, she were looking at the water like one looks at a door before it opens, hoping that the person standing behind it is the same she wishes to see.

He doesn’t think she has seen him—even goes as far as hoping she actually hasn’t, because he is pretty sure he could recite the conversation by heart (the fact that it has yet to take place does not make one bit of difference, in case you were wondering); it would start with something like, “Hey, Clint. How are you? Do you remember me?” to which he would respond with, “As touching as your concern may be, I have no damn idea who I’m speaking to, so no,” low and kind of rude. He’d not be ashamed. On the contrary, simply pissed that whoever he meets just _expects_ some sort of predetermined behaviour from him, just because he’s Clint Barton, doctor-to-be and golden son according to every soul that inhabits this place.

Instead, she says, “I can go if you want me to,” in such a low voice that not only does he wonder whether he has actually heard her, but he also thinks, _company might not be that bad of an idea, after all,_ for the first time since he woke up.

He rebuts on impulse. “It’s fine,” and for a second he can’t quite believe his own words. If anyone had tried telling him that having any kind of company wouldn’t have bothered him some time in the foreseeable future he’d have bitten their head off. “You can stay, if you want.”

She doesn’t say anything in return, and it’s comforting not to have to try and figure out what event she’s recalling until his head aches, not having to look at the hope in her eyes, so bright he could think of leaning in and find it touchable and consistent, and crushing it with a small, empty word. At least, to her, it would sound empty; to him it would be burning with an anger he’d find no other target for. No matter how hard he tried.

He speaks before he can reconsider what he means to say. “I saw you when I woke up,” is what his vocal chords put together, the water below roaring over his voice (even so, the melancholy rings in his ears loud and clear, heavy over each word. He hates it to pieces). “Do we know each other-” He stops, abruptly, her name lost in that messed up maze that is his brain. 

“Bobbi,” she whispers, her eyes wandering, as though she were afraid of looking at him now that he has a name to match to her face. 

He ends up asking, probably for the first since he regained consciousness, his tone completely void of venom, “Did we, uh-” There it is again, the blankness; it makes his muscles tighten and his blood hot with rage. He doesn’t know whether he was like this before: chopped at the edges, raw—so damn uncertain in his own body and life and mind. But then again, he is not even sure he wants to know. “Know each other before?”

“No,” she says in a small voice, although it seems to be only a little puzzle piece of what their story is. For the first time, eagerness churns in his stomach, as restless as a hurricane in the making. “I mean,” she amends shyly, as though what she’s about to tell him is something she had never thought of telling anyone—let alone Clint Barton. “I kind of had a crush on you when I was younger.” She doesn’t stammer; if anything, she keeps it cool, like she’s telling him a childhood story she used to be really embarrassed of or something.

“Did I act on it?” The question wasn’t planned. It’s not that he means to drop salt onto the wound, because he doesn’t; despite what he’s led people to think of his recently-come-out-of-a-coma self, he doesn’t like acting like a dick. It’s a knee-jerk reaction—and people aren’t exactly helping, but that is an entirely different story.

“Other than going and breaking my heart?” she asks, and there’s a hint of laughter in the lilt of her voice. “Nah, you didn’t,”

It feels like the first actual breath he’s taken since coming out of the coma. It feels like a weight being taken off him; it feels like hope, in some twisted way.

“I’m glad you told me,” he tells her, and he realises that it sounds as weird as it can get, so he adds, before a question can leave her lips, “It’s the first thing I’ve heard that doesn’t make Clint Barton sound like a saint.”

Bobbi’s eyes lower and the conversation halts—literally. What had been the lightest chatting he’d willingly taken part in since his eyes had opened and he’d felt like an alien just evaporated like melted snow on a sunny day; here it comes again, he tells himself. Me taking whatever people offer and throwing it in their face, as unintentional as it may be.

“Have I just,” he stops, words dangling unsaid on his tongue and anger hissing somewhere deep inside, “said something I shouldn’t have?”

Bobbi denies quickly, but her explanation stops at that.

“You know,” he starts speaking without even knowing what he exactly wants to say. It’s just an impulse he feels the pressing need to heed, because he’s bottled up so much stuff lately. There are Edith and Harold and their heavy—and just as useless, it seems—hopes; Barney and his being this idiotic, entitled son of a bitch; the name he carries that seems to have been carved in his skin, but feels incredibly foreign at the same time. He’s kept every bit of how it all makes him feel to himself, leaving even Kate and Peggy in the dark. There’s no need, he told himself, to make this harder on them. I am the one who has to deal with this.

“Most of the time, I talk without really thinking about what I’m saying first, and it just puts me right in the eye of a messy hurricane, and judging by how you’re looking at me right now,” he says, his voice finally anything but a tense bowstring. “I’ve done it again, since I have no clue what’s going through your head.”

Bobbi looks up and shrugs, lightly. “I guess I was just a little embarrassed, okay?” She even smiles, and as brief as it ends up being, it’s pretty, and adds: “You did just tell me that not doing anything about my crush on you was a mistake.”

True, that. Looks like he can’t win against logic, no matter how hard he tries.

“Did you mean that, by the way?”

“Why wouldn’t I mean it?” The way it comes out is harsh, but it’s not because of Bobbi. It’s the whole concept of saying stuff and not meaning it that just… rings wrong to him.

Case in point, “People say things they don’t mean all the time,” she mutters, staring straight at him.

His brow arches as he counters, “People do lots of things I don’t see reason for,” and then the subject switches to “How long’s it been since I saw you at the hospital,” and Clint understands that, a) it’s come out of the freaking blue; and b) he wants to know either way.

“A couple of months… give or take,” is what she tells him.

He exhales loudly, floored. “If you’d asked me, I would have easily said it was yesterday. My sense of time is non-existent,” he admits grimly. “But then again, people value it a lot. I bet Clint was the personification of punctuality.” It comes out as a regretful sigh, and he really wishes that is all it actually was. 

In reality, it’s all pretty tangled and dark and heavy. There is no way to pinpoint how much it is regret and anger and sadness; all mixed together into something else he can’t give a name to.

Bobbi chuckles, but the water below eats up the sound. “Yeah, I think he was, too.”

He turns his head, as though something were pulling it to the side. “According to what the Bartons say of him, they must think I’m the devil to his angel or something,” he huffs, annoyance thick in his words.

“Don’t say that,” she chides, gently. “It’s your frustration talking, right now.”

His hands start moving aimlessly just as rage mounts back on. Being compared to the personification of perfection has never sat well with him, and this? It’s like pouring salt on one enormous wound. “Tell me about his faults, Bobbi,” he pleads, his voice raw and yet controlled—God knows how the last bit is actually true, honestly. “Think about it. There has to be something he screwed up at, once.” Desperation beats beneath his words. He needs to have something to cling to that says, _whatever you do, it won’t feel like a betrayal to everyone, because you have screwed_ _up_ _already_. “I don’t know—flunk a test, or something,”

“Okay,” she concedes. Her brows furrow, as though she had to chase such an event, as distant as it seems. “There was this one time he decided to let his hair grow out of control,” her voice lowers, a laugh threatening to spill over the words.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe her, but, “That’s the best you reason to despise him you can come up with?” Disbelief rings shrill even to his own ears. “An ugly haircut?” It’s like trying to find a reason to hate on Bambi, which can be rephrased through, _fucking close to impossible._

“I like yours more, though,” Bobbi says, her voice gentle. “It’s different,”

He nearly stumbles backwards. Some part of him is convinced he must have misheard her or made the whole thing up, even. 

Once again, the words that come out of his mouth are not what he expected; it’s like he doesn’t even think about uttering them. They just find their own way out, somehow. “You’re the first person to talk to me without regret over…” Just like that they bump and trip into one another and his throat closes. “You know… him, not being there. You don’t talk to me throwing the fact that you miss him to my face.”

Bobbi doesn’t waver one inch. No tears or screams. “You’re a different person,” she counters, unfazed. “Believe me, if this had been Clint Barton, he’d not have had a conversation with a stranger in the middle of the night. On a bridge, nonetheless.”

He pipes up, “You’re not a stranger, though,” _And we’re even at logic, huh?_

“He didn’t know that,” she points out, unblinking. “It’s nice to meet you,” she adds, holding her hand out, surely.

He takes it and squeezes, at ease for the first time in who knows how long while doing so; meeting people has been nothing but a low blow because of how deep the disappointment in their eyes sank, when he didn’t remember who they were to Clint Barton. To someone he can no longer be. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

**_ III Bobbi _ **

She is kind of nervous, okay. It’s not an everyday thing, the Thing – yep, capital T and all, but this is it; no naming it – she’s about to walk into. Although, if one’s willing to be precise about it, she muses darkly as her fingers coil and uncoil rhythmically, as if following the whims of a bored child, (her own nerves, tight and intricate, are probably perpetually frowning, doubt being their go-to expression) it’s not something you can actually walk into. _Oh, well. Semantics._

She’s told no one about it. Her uncle already knows, of course—has known since she herself found out, more or less.

Nick “Fury” Morse has a keen eye for details, and her distraught, wide eyes must’ve been a huge giveaway: he could have thought of it as part of her grief, and he would’ve been right; all because it would’ve been kind of expected of her to look like that. 

She’s missed Trip a great deal since he passed away, although those last weeks had been rough like no other time in her life, doubt gnawing at her stomach viciously, kicking hope to the not-so-metaphorical curb relentlessly, while every second she spent out of the hospital, with no news in sight for either of them, felt like an eon.

_ How long are the tests going to take, _ she’d wondered once she was alone in the dark, her strength tossed aside like a dirty shirt. _What am I gonna do if_ —her brain had had trouble at getting the words out, as though she were producing poison or something— _if they end up being positive?_

She shakes her head lightly, careful not to lose any hairpin. She has spent hours sitting still while Isabel put them in place; undoing her work, even a teeny-tiny bit, just by accident, will cost her a long rant, once the night ends; and she is one hundred percent positive she won’t be in any acceptable shape by that time. (In all honesty, she’s kind of betting on not being in shape for anything but a beer and her pillow. It’s a twist of her gut; a chilly feeling spreading through all of her skin, dancing up her spine. Some kind of omen, if you will.) _Now’s not the time to go all Orwell on the past. What happened happened; Give it a rest._

She sighs, her right hand catching a free strand of hair and taking it back behind her ear.

Her uncle takes the microphone almost as though he were afraid it might disappear once touched, looking straight on at the crowd. It’s endearing, this mix of nerves and strength. “I’m not proud of some of the things I’m gonna say,” it’s only the first sentence and already it’s killed all the idle chatting in the room. Everyone seemed to have removed the reason—the person—why they all gathered here tonight. That is, until they noticed his solemn gaze, “but even knowing what AIDS is, even hearing again and again that I need to be careful, even after getting tests done, I’ve never really been aware of how silently lethal it could be.” He doesn’t say anything more for what feels like hours. Nobody else dares utter a syllable, either.

“At least,” he goes on, voice lower, bending as though he’s about to cry (God, please, Uncle Nick, _no._ ), “‘till I met Trip. We weren't really fond of each other, at first. But he’s opened my eyes, and I can only say that I’m grateful for that.” His mouth stops moving and his gaze lowers. 

She isn’t sure she hears the rest of it. Nor does she have any idea of how she makes it to the stage, for that matter.

(She actually fears—has been fearing all day long—that she might faint before getting there)

“Trip was a wonderful guy,” she begins, her voice wavering slightly (do people catch that, a part of her wonders, stunned). “These two years have been amazing for me.” A tear slips, hot and lonely, fast along the length of her cheek. “I’ll treasure them until the day I draw my last breath.” She notices two thing once she says this: her uncle has winced, as though something had stung him—multiple times. Clint, on the other hand, standing alone in the crowd, dressed in a t-shirt as black as the night itself, accompanied by a leather jacket of the same shade, has frowned, confusion shining in his eyes. (It’s gone in a blink, though. As quick as a shiver.)

“But you wanna know what AIDS looks like, I guess,” she whispers, her voice suddenly weak to her own ears. “It looks like Trip trying to remember my face in his last days when his eyes stopped working, Trip ending his whispers in a cough; the blood bright and omnipresent on his pillow and sheets.”

_ In _ _for a penny_ , she murmurs to herself. Her insides tighten, nausea rolling up in her stomach. “You need to give AIDS a face, right?” Her index finger leaves the microphone, a sweaty fingerprint in its wake, and rises just enough to get to her face.It points at her own cheek. “This is the face of AIDS.” _In for many pounds, I guess._

She hadn’t noticed Clint as he’d moved closer to the stage, probably because the silence in the room had gotten as loud as a bomb going off, and yet here he stands.

She hasn’t cried, and yet her throat feels as though she had been doing nothing but until now, swollen and dry as it is.

Sounds of any kind register in her ears like some gasps, open-mouthed, too, she’s sure; whitened hands running to a pair of lips, because, _oh, my God, that can’t be true;_ a shrill noise that feels just a little too close—and that should tell her what has just happened in a heartbeat, but, no; her brain remains blank.

Some part of her—small, big; she doesn’t even know—notices she has yet to take one step back to her table.

She feels them. The tears are slowly pooling, salty drop by salty drop, at the corner of her eyes, as though they were planning some big outing.

She can feel her breath, too; it’s slamming against her ribcage, faster with each time she inhales. Like a tsunami waiting to grow and then hit everything in its path and disappear as violently as it came.

She can do nothing but stand here, feet somehow anchored to the floor, as her emotions grow and grow.

The hand sneaking up her arm goes unnoticed. So do the blue eyes that bear into hers as though they were hoping to cut away the curtain she seems to have fallen and gotten lost behind, somewhere along memory lane.

(It’s only later that she realises who they belong to. Warmth has seeped into her skin and the May air has moved her hair around, his arms are beneath her legs and his chest beneath her cheek. “It’s okay, Bob,” he whispers, the words like wind on her forehead. “I’ve got you.”

That’s all it takes. She ends up crying into the crook of his neck, his hands rubbing up and down her shoulder.

She’s about to thank him when he kisses her, quick and tender. It’s barely more than a peck, but it catches the murmured “thank you” right off the corner of her lips.)

**_ IV Clint _ **

He had known. Somewhere in the back of his misshaped mind, he’d known that this would’ve happened eventually.

It’s taken two years, various disasters and him becoming an uncle, (He’d called the disasters bit early on; ever since he got shot in her living room—it does come with the job, and Jack must’ve told him a million times; it’s gotta be carved on the back of his head, by now. As for the uncle bit, who’d have called that? _Certainly not Clint. Or Maria._ In fact, if he so much as mentions it, she ends up threatening him; which is _not one bit pleasant_ ) but the business has finally decided to come and bite him in the ass. Hard.

_ Go big or go home must be everyone’s motto, these days. _

It doesn’t feel like it’s been two years since they have decided to give it a try. _Correction,_ Bobbi would sneer. _Since I’ve decided that I wanted you, mob and all, Clint Carter._

(She’d been pretty vocal about it, too. If he closed his eyes, he could see her perfectly, standing on the tip of her toes, her glare so thick it could have cut through glass. “I don’t give a damn,” she’d muttered, almost to herself. “I got scared, and I know you and Uncle Nick think that was the right move—running away, but,” her voice had risen right along with her index finger, sharp as a knife; that comparison wasn’t even thrown there for dramatic effect. He knew what he was talking about, all right.

Every muscle in his body had gone stiff. _Don’t, Bob._

“I spent days convinced I’d lost both you and Iz.” Her voice had caught on the nickname, as though she’d physically tripped. It had torn at his resolve, to hear that sound; that sob that had not been a sob, because she hadn’t wanted to cry again. Not yet.

“Bobbi,” he’d cut in. The plea in his voice couldn’t have been mistaken for anything else. Not by her ears, anyway.

“No.” Weak, like a dying ray of sunshine. “No, Clint,” stronger, harsher. “You have to listen to me, now.”

He knows when to shut up and when to push. The glance she’d thrown his way, hard, lips pressed in tow, had been enough of a warning.

“I’ve tried, okay?” A peak of loud, tightly composed (he could feel the sob sneaking into it. Barely) anger. “And then you had to go missing,” a step toward him, index finger drawn out, “and scare the shit out of me.” Another step; she’d been close enough to touch him now. (She hadn’t.)

“I,” Silence followed as her finger touched his shirt, as though she needed proof; here, now. She pressed into the tissue, her finger whitening. He felt her tremble, but kept his body still.

She had exploded suddenly, sobs ringing in his ears. “I thought,” break, shiver, her hand fisting, “I thought I had lost you,” she hadn’t screamed, her words drowned in a sob, but it had been as though she had. 

_ Fuck it. _

His arms had moved, engulfing her against him. Holding her had felt— _like coming home._ For real.

He’d lifted her chin, gently. Some of her tears trailing down her neck. “Look at me,” he’d whispered. “I’m here, Bob.”

The kiss had been slow. Her skin hot beneath his hand.

“ _I’m here—_ not going anywhere,”)

It doesn’t even feel like two years have passed since Maria came to him, her pregnant belly so huge he thought she might have given birth right on his doorstep—no fucks given at all.

(He’d opened the door quickly; nervously, even. Of all the things he could’ve expected, though, Maria hadn’t been even close to the top ten. “What’s wrong, Maria?” Usually, that phrase would have been a sigh.

_ Usually. _ “I need your help,” she had sobbed, her words fast and scrambled, tears hot on her cheeks.

_ What the fuck? Had Barney done something? _

His hand clenched and he barely noticed until the nails hit his palm and sank.

“What’s going on?”

She tried to calm herself down, her hand wringing a messy path through her hair, sniffles coming out even shriller.

He noticed Jack’s gaze out of the corner of his eye: watchful, as though he had something to be careful of, here of all places.

He’d arched a brow. _Why the sudden fuss?_

His friend had shaken his head. _Not my place, Clint._

“I need you to do something for me,” she had spoken lowly, as if exhausted. “And it might—screw it, it _will_ sound crazy.”

“Not out here, Maria. You look like hell, c’mon in and sit down, first.”

She’d nodded, following him into the penthouse.

“I—Christ, you’re gonna freak out,” she had hissed, tormenting her hair again.

He remembers sighing. This girl would’ve led him to an early grave—occupational hazard be damned. “Try me-”

“I need you to-” a pause, her hand was back at messing with a dark strand of hair. “I need you to say you’re the father of my baby.”

He had to be mistaken, his brain sputtered. “What?”

“You haven’t gone deaf in the last three days, have you?” Sly; typical Maria Hill.

She had handed him his ass at pool last year—and then some. All with a sly smile plastered to her lips.

“Has Barn—my brother, has he done something?”

She’d shaken her head. “Not yet.” A groan later, she added: “You know him, though. It’s only a matter of time.”

_ Hell yeah, it was.  _ (Still is, truthfully.)

His throat had bobbed slightly, disgust clamping his insides. “Alright.”

_ He hadn’t even been born yet, but Michael already meant more to him than Barney ever would.) _

He remembers holding Michael when Maria couldn’t,—she had tried and burst into tears, that one time. (His heart had cracked, as his hand gently pressed on her shoulder, “C’mon, you should rest,”)—his arms tightening around that little body ever so carefully because, _what if I drop him?_

He remembers the nights he spent reading to him, sleep being nothing more than a memory, his little fingers holding onto Clint’s whenever he woke in the middle of the night, as though that touch alone could comfort him.

He remembers Bobbi staying at his penthouse, flying Michael on her shoulders, smiling; he remembers his own lips lifting at the sight. _Maybe, this could be us, one day._

He remembers it all so clearly. Like it had just happened before his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” Bobbi mumbles now, her voice dragging him away from his own head. Its tone sends shivers down his spine, as though that alone had carried the message along.

“Yeah? What about?”

He notices her feet shifting and her lowered gaze. It’s almost as if what she is going to say was too big.

“I want to be a doctor. I want to help people—I mean, with everything I’ve seen, it feels like the right path for me.” There is steel in her voice and her words are warm, confident. Driven; she wants this. Whatever she wants, he thinks, pride and melancholy stinging his throat in a weird and heavy mixture, she gets.

“But I can’t keep doing this, Clint,” she breaks off, her voice snapping on his name like a cord. It’s not completely unexpected, but it still hits home. She’d been the person to look at him and not demand the presence of someone else.

“I can’t keep expecting the worst every time you set foot outside, day after day; I can’t wake up and think, _thank God he made it home last night_ seven days a week.”

_ I get it,  _ he wants to say; it would be hollow and thin and dark, but he wishes he could say it. He doesn’t want her to assume he’s keeping quiet out of rage, because this isn’t what this is.

He is keeping quiet because he has no idea how to say that it does hurt, but he knew it was coming, somehow.

(He loves her—how could he not? _It’s Bobbi Morse_ —and that is why he tries to fight it, long and hard.

He tries, but he fails. Some part of him knew it would end this way.

He only wants one thing: the best for her. And the best, Nick Morse’s voice whispers in his head, its tone firm and harsh, isn’t gunfights and secrets and injuries in the middle of the night.)

**_ V Bobbi _ **

This is what goodbye is like: they’re standing on their bridge,—it became theirs a long time ago; probably ever since that conversation on a lonely night, when Clint Carter wasn’t even half of who he’s chosen to be—face to face.

Neither of them has spoken yet. Both know it’s probably the last time they will do that, and it’s like they want to commit everything to memory, first.

When she had told him that she wanted to be a doctor she had meant it. The fact that she would have to move to Paris to do that is still new—fresh; just like this space between them.

She wants to start over. Staying here would mean never truly letting go of what has given her reason to do what she plans to and, at the same time, so much grief.

She has tried fitting in, adapting. 

(She had kept her reservation about cutting Barney out of Michael’s life to herself and it had worked. _For a while._

But, alas, she and Maria seemed doomed to clash.

“You need to tell him,” she’d told Clint once, her voice hissing.

“Why should I?” No rage. Clint seemed genuinely taken aback. Like she’d asked him to hand Michael to a stranger permanently.

“He deserves to know he has a child, Clint.” She had been thinking about it for so long that actually voicing it had felt like the words had lost their meaning.

He’d not spoken. Maria, on the other hand, had gone for the assault. “Why should _you_ have a say? You’re not Michael’s anything,”

She had stared at Clint, hopeful.

“I can’t, Bobbi.” Pained, but firm. _Final;_ like the curtain coming down after the last scene.

She had tried, he knew. He _had_ to know.

Telling Barney—“Michael’s yours,” three simple words, and yet, it had felt like liberation, but also like ripping her own heart out. All at once. _Crack. Crack. Crack._ )

Surprisingly, Clint is the one that starts speaking. “I’ll miss you, Bob,” and he stops just long enough to breathe, as though something had been pressing on him. “It’s the right thing for you, though. And I want you to do the right thing—become the kickass doctor I know you can be.” The last word is out of his mouth and it is gruff—typical Clint.

She doesn’t notice his arms until they press on her back to keep her near; they are warm and, dare she say it, a little shaky.

It ends—because, that’s what’s happening, as much as they are aggressively not saying it—the way it started four years ago: with her tears dropping in the crook of his neck. 

Her “I’ll miss you, too,” is a whisper that she is not even sure he hears.

(It’s the truth, she will; but it’s time for her to go. She’ll always remember what he means and he’s done for her.

_ The girl with no past and the boy with no future _ _will always have each other, because no matter what’s happened in their lives, they are who they are because of each other, too._

Her heart agrees, but it gets a little colder. Even before he lets her go.)

 

 

 

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End file.
